A Radio Play and Full Album from Benjamin Dean Wilson

A new release from Benjamin Dean Wilson comes through as a very unique and engaging four-part musical radio play that gives you a full range of approaches in songwriting, portrayed with a heavily theatrical aesthetic, and delivers a premise that feels genuine and definitely builds this very cinematic appeal throughout its course.

The album is called Until the House Falls and spans 11 songs in total; however, the first chunk of the release features the full play with the songs included.

So, the first track is the first act of this theatrical engagement and spans just over 20 minutes in length, but features several songs, along with the acting and narration.

The second track follows suit with the second act of this play. Each of the first four tracks is the four different acts of the play, all spanning over 20 minutes in length and include the actual acting and music as a whole.

This is a very interesting concept, and I found it to be, again, very engaging, and if you lean back and close your eyes while you listen, it really paints amazing pictures in your head as everything unfolds.

The fifth song and on are simply the songs that are in each act of the play, but on their own.

A lot of these songs are rock-oriented and definitely still come through with that beautifully theatrical tonality and aesthetic.

"Tornado!", the first song, holds you to that rock opera style but is very classic rock oriented, amazing guitar work and riffs, the vocals are robust, boisterous, and very attention-calling with this great deep tone and raspiness.

A lot of these songs have an outstanding energy level that really grabs you and is part of why the entire idea behind this actually works.

Songs like "Busy Day" represent more of a pop-oriented and fully orchestrated band setting with lyrics that focus on a small part of the full play itself. This is based on how the man and the wife both have busy days. The man goes out to work, and when he comes home, he wants to have a clean house, but the woman doesn't have it as easy as you think.

So, this all touches on actual life events and goes through its course in how people interact with each other in certain relationships, along with a slew of other natural life occurrences that are something a lot of us can relate to.

Tracks like "Sleepless Night" come from the man's perspective and feature this great sort of homeland rock and blues feel with some outstanding guitar work and rest that stick with you for long after it's ended.

There's something about this that makes you think of classics like Grease. It's got that vibe going on, and songs like "Confrontation" provide you with a lot of that juice.

You can tell this was extremely well thought out with a lot of attention to detail and not just musically, but the storyline behind it all as well.

As I mentioned before, it's all human life; adult life and the things that go along with it.

It's about making decisions, feelings, finances, and everything else under the sun that we deal with as adult human beings.

I found it so inventive that Benjamin took the time to create something that was so in-depth and made an actual theatrical presentation, complete with everything you can think of, to go along with an entire album's worth of songs that are performed throughout it all.

This was a lot to soak in, and you have two options and how you want to do it.

The first is that you listen to the first four tracks on the record, which is the entire play from start to finish.

The second option is to start listening from track number five and just listen to the songs separately.

In my opinion, listening to the first four tracks that have everything involved lays it out in a way that makes more sense.

You can hear more of the storyline and follow along more easily this way.

However, if you're just someone who loves the soundtracks to things like this, listening from track number five and on is the best way to go.

Either way, this was an entire world that serves as an amazing escape and does its thing with a brilliant approach.

You literally feel like you just watched a film or a play. This quickly and easily pulls you away from wherever you are and whatever you are doing and puts you in this entire other world and situation that is not far from our own realities, but depicts things from different characters' perspectives.

This is a really in-depth and classic look at life and a regular neighborhood through a radio play perspective, and it's done with so much thought that it flows exactly the way it was meant to.

To me, this was borderline brilliant, and I think taking classic, vintage, old school radio play approaches to creating a full album's worth of songs was such a cool move that no one really does anymore.

Perhaps Benjamin's next project will be to actually put on the physical play. Who knows.

Until then, definitely take a deep dive into this one because it's well worth your time.

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